Knew You'd Turn UP
by IShouldBeOverThis
Summary: Valentine's angst to romance.  Five times it didn't work out for either John or Sherlock and one time that it did.


1. When Sherlock was seven he picked a flower and made a card for a girl in his class named Isabelle. Isabelle looked like a china doll with dark curls and wide blue eyes and she would let him borrow her art supplies when he forgot his. But when he went to give them to her after school her mother pulled her away and told her not to play with that odd Holmes boy.

* * *

2. When Sherlock was sixteen there was a boy who liked to kiss him in the woods behind the science building after class. He played rugby and had strong arms and admired Sherlock's lips. He said they were just like a girl's.

When they met anywhere else on campus the boy, whose name was Hamish, would look right past him, no matter how many times Sherlock kissed him in the woods or helped with class work. On _that_ day Sherlock stood leaning against a tree until his shoes were soaked through from the snow.

* * *

3. When Sherlock was in his third year at uni he made sort-of-friends with two classmates who were also reading chemistry. Her name was Jane and she wore her hair in a very severe bob and walked with her arms tightly crossed over her chest, but she had the greenest eyes Sherlock had ever seen. It didn't occur to him to wonder if they were contact lenses.

Mark was short and ruddy with a pronounced squint, but when he spoke on a subject about which he was passionate, he had the most wonderful smile that took up most of his face.

Sherlock wasn't sure which one of them he loved more. Which was why, when he had taken them out to dinner and they went home together, he decided to drop out of university altogether.

* * *

4. Sherlock was twenty-seven when he met Inspector Lestrade for the first time. Sherlock had been hanging around police stations for two years trying to get people to listen to him before Lestrade stopped to hear what he had to say and even used it to solve the case. Lestrade took him to lunch to celebrate.

Inspector Lestrade didn't wear a ring, and seemed a bit unkempt, so the first time Sherlock heard him say, "I love you too, Darling," to someone on the phone, Sherlock remembered that love could make you stupid. He resolved to never make that mistake again.

* * *

5. He almost slipped up when he was thirty-one. Madylin was an heiress whose brother had disappeared. It was his first paying case and it felt as good as any substance he'd ever tried. She was very tactile, touching his hands often, ruffling his hair. He wasn't sure what he felt for her. When he'd found her brother in Cambodia, she decided that she would be happier leaving England behind. He didn't miss her so much, as he missed the touch of her hand.

* * *

+1

"Let's stay in tonight."

"Why?" _…because you don't want to be seen with me. It's ok to kiss me here in private, but out there, people will wonder why you're wasting your time on the freak, on Valentine's Day of all things..._

"Because you are so drop-dead, so irresistibly, so oh-my-god gorgeous, and so blazingly, amazingly brilliant, that even though it's rude to gape, I don't think that I shall ever be able to stop. And while I would love showing you off and saying, yes, he's with me to make others green with envy, tonight I just want you all to myself. I want to hold you and revel in how lucky I am, if that's alright with you."

* * *

1. When John was five he had a crush on Jenny Carlisle. She was the kind of girl that grownups called cute as a button, with shoulder–length blonde hair and a turned-up nose. Their parents said that they made the most adorable couple in the world. They exchanged rings that they got from a gumball machine and swore that they would love each other forever, which turned out to be the following Tuesday.

* * *

2. When John was fifteen and a half he started going sort-of-steady with a girl named Meg. As neither could drive this consisted of watching telly on her couch while her mother made them popcorn. After they turned sixteen (one week apart—it seemed important at the time), they got a bit further. But when they went to separate colleges, they drifted apart and neither really minded.

* * *

3. When John was twenty-four he had his first grown-up girlfriend, Liz. Liz was attractive in that sort of athletic one-of the-boys way that can be relaxing and fun. John liked the way she enjoyed watching games on the telly at the pub and do the quizzes. They both shared flats with roommates, but they talked about getting a place of their own, only with John's studies and Liz's job as a PA in the City, it never seemed quite the right time. When Liz threw him over in favor of her boss, John was devastated. He mourned for nearly six months until mates started setting him up on blind dates.

* * *

4. In Afghanistan John dated a variety of women, fellow Doctors, nurses, soldiers, and two Afghani women. None of them lasted very long, although John was always a devoted and caring boyfriend for the while it lasted, all of the women said so. But the nature of the situation, the coming and going of personnel and the daily risk, made long-term attachments seem like a fool's game.

John also had a male nurse named Chuck who was a little in love with him. Chuck was Australian and sturdy, and John wished that they could just be friends, but the occasional look of sorrowful desperation that he saw in Chuck's eyes made hanging out difficult. He really didn't know what to do with that.

* * *

5. After the thing with Sarah evaporated in the face of constant threat to life and limb, John dated Sheila. Sheila was an emergency responder, so she fully understood being called away in the middle of dinner. She sometimes came along on the cases.

A former dancer, she was slim and graceful, perhaps an inch taller than John, more in heels. She had black, wavy hair that fell to just above her shoulders and smooth, pale skin. And if there were occasional rolled eyes behind their backs, John didn't notice. She decided to volunteer with Medecins Sans Frontieres and John considered going with her, but kept putting off the decision.

* * *

+1  
John loved Sherlock. He was one hundred percent sure of that. He was also in love with Sherlock. He was ninety-nine and one half percent certain of that and the last half a percent really depended on how Sherlock felt.

So now he knew what Chuck had gone through, and he still didn't know what to do with that.

Until one day he turned suddenly and caught that same look of sorrowful desperation in Sherlock's eyes.

It occurred to him, while sitting on the couch, tenderly stroking Sherlock's hair, that he really was the luckiest man in the world.

He didn't know that Sherlock was thinking the same thing.


End file.
